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Like Joseph, we need to allow for the possibility that people can change. Lessons for Today
Therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father unless the boy is with me? Let me not be witness to the woe that would overtake my father! Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, "Have everyone withdraw from me!" So there was no one else about when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. (Genesis 44:33-45:1)
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Rabbi Lawrence Kushner explains:
Joseph has set this whole scene up. He has framed his only full brother, Benjamin. He has meticulously arranged things so that now all his brothers need to do is report the truth to their father: The kid was literally caught with the goods on him. It's an opportunity for an exact replay of when they threw Joseph in the pit and lied to their father that he had been devoured by a wild beast. This time the man (Joseph) will throw Benjamin into an Egyptian dungeon.
Rabbinic tradition counsels that we don't know if someone has genuinely made atonement for a sin until he or she has an opportunity to commit the same sin again and does not. So now, unbeknownst to them, Joseph has put his brothers to the test. He has even greased the skids this time for them to choose self-interest over sibling. (Or perhaps Joseph is giving his brothers a second chance. How many people would do that for their siblings?) But this time Judah walks right into the jaws of what he must believe is his own slavery. "Take me instead of the boy," he says. And that melts Joseph's heart. Now Joseph could "make himself known" to his brothers.
Lawrence Kushner and David Mamet, Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. (New York: Schocken Books, 2003) p. 39.
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Rabbi Pinchas Peli writes:
The Rabbis of the Midrash further debate Joseph's wisdom in ordering everyone to withdraw at the moment of his meeting with his brothers. Should he not have been afraid that his brothers in their rage, not knowing that he was Joseph, their lost brother, might kill him since his body guards had been withdrawn?
Says one rabbi: Joseph is to be criticized for his action. It was unwise of him to take unnecessary risks. Another, however, says that Joseph is to be praised for his action, because of the courage he demonstrated. In his desire to save his brothers from embarrassment in front of strangers, he went as far as to jeopardize his own life. A third rabbi says Joseph was wise enough to assess the situation correctly, and to come to the conclusion that there was no real risk in doing what he did.
While it was true that his brothers did not know Joseph's real identity at that moment, he knew who they were and that they would not under any circumstances slyly kill an unguarded man. He thus relied on his brothers' basic integrity, in which he believed despite his other experiences of their behaviour to him.
Pinchas H. Peli, Torah Today - A Renewed Encounter with Scripture (Washington: B'nai B'rith Books, 1987), p.46-47.
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This is one of the dramatic high points of the entire Torah. Joseph, the dreamer and favoured son of his father, was sold into slavery by his own brothers. But, through God’s guidance and his gift of being able to interpret dreams, he is able to ascend from the depths of the dungeon to the position of the most powerful man in Egypt, next to Pharaoh himself. Now, many years later, in an ironic twist of fate, his brother’s stand before him, and he is finally able to exact his revenge. Joseph has manipulated the entire situation so that all of his brothers, gathered as one, are subject to his authority. He literally has the power of life and death over them. And yet, with Judah’s simple act of standing up for the youngest brother - Benjamin, Joseph’s only full brother - Joseph’s heart melts. He sends all of his attendants away, and tearfully reveals himself to his brothers. This chapter of the story closes with a happy ending (although, as a result, the Children of Israel become slaves in Egypt for centuries).
Joseph is a master manipulator, and, from a purely literary point of view, we could easily expect that he would “get even” with his brothers who so callously sold him off as a youth. But this is not any old literary narrative, but rather it is Torah, and the lessons are much greater. Joseph, by putting his brothers to the test, is able to determine that, just has he has changed beyond the point of recognition since he last saw his brothers, they too have changed, grown and matured into thoughtful caring men, and he is able, out of wisdom and a caring heart, to forgive them for what they did to him. Joseph clearly knows that what they did was wrong, but he is also able to see the big picture, that in the end it worked out for good, as he says to them, “Now, do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me hither; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you” (Genesis 45:5). Boy, must his brothers have been relieved.
Lawrence Kushner sees the brothers test as the very model of Teshuvah - “repentance” or “return”. As he notes, the litmus test for true repentance, as defined by Jewish tradition, is that when faced with the same circumstances that lead to sin in the first place, the individual resists. Joseph very purposefully set up a situation that would allow the brothers to abandon Benjamin (the youngest and “new favourite”) to his fate, while protecting themselves. Yet they don’t. Joseph could have simply taken custody of Benjamin and sent the others of their way, empty handed and unaware. But he doesn’t. Joseph set the test, and Judah, representative of all, steps up to the task and passes. The brothers do not commit the same sin again, and Joseph knows that they have done Teshuvah, and now he can return to them.
Lessons for Today
The Lesson of Joseph and his brothers is simple and timeless, yet it is one that is not easily learned: people do change, and then do deserve to be forgiven. If change, growth, and personal development were not possible, then there would be no point in ever discussing repentance. We could do away with Yom Kippur for good, since no one could ever repent or be worthy of forgiveness. That is, of course, nonsense.
True repentance is hard, but forgiveness is even harder. So often, when we’ve been hurt by someone, especially in a bad way, we tend to view them as all evil, beyond redemption, and we see all their actions through the filter of the hurt they’ve done us. Everything they do seems to be selfish and from a wrong motivation. Our own anger and hostility perpetuates the hurt they did to us, keeping it always before us. We judge that they need to change, but when they do, we are either blind to it or skeptical. If Joseph was like this, he would have thrown his brothers into the pit the first time he saw them, as they did to him, and he would have been done with them. But he didn’t. Instead, he tested them; gave them a second chance, and they proved themselves worthy of that chance. Then, rather then vengeance being enacted, healing could begin. Joseph may not have trusted his brothers, but he did trust the possibility of change and repentance. This trust was rewarded with the reunification of his family.
Can everyone pass the test? Of course not. Not unless they have really gone through a deep process of discernment and change; not unless they have truly done Teshuvah. But if they do pass the test, truly repent, then it is incumbent upon us to forgive. Like Joseph, we need to allow for the possibility that people can change. If we don’t, we not only remove from others the motivation for repentance, but we also condemn ourselves to wallow in our own sins forever.
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